Job Discussion Forums

[young_whippersnapper]

I ask this given that I have seen ads for ESL teaching jobs in Hong Kong. However, as Hong Kong is a largely English-speaking area, I was wondering what ESL teaching jobs there would entail? I assume it would largely involve teaching to non-English speakers who intend to live in or become employed in Hong Kong?

[sistercream]

On the contrary, more than 95% of the population are not native English speakers. The vast majority have Cantonese as their mother tongue, and most of the others are Mandarin speakers.

So, all these people are learning English at school. An increasing number of children are also hauled along to after school classes for not only English, but also just about every other subject under the sun as well.

ESL teachers here run the full gamut, from "white monkeys" with generic BAs but no teacher training working in gimcrack language centres, right up to well qualified and experienced professional teachers working in top-notch schools.

If someone has both TEFL and other teaching qualifications (with experience), there are also openings in the many international schools, usually as a class or subject teacher, but with "extra responsibility" for teaching English to students in the non-English speaking stream (German, French, Korean, Japanese schools spring to mind).

[young_whippersnapper]

Thank you! I think I got confused by the fact that English is one of the official languages of HK.

[roseannanna]

[Joshua2006]

[roseannanna]